Please take your Bibles and turn to that gospel, the gospel of John chapter 3. As we look at Jesus Christ and His majesty bringing people out of darkness and into light, out of death, and into eternal life with Himself. That's what John is telling us in these first five chapters of his gospel. How Jesus Christ has encountered different kinds of individuals, sometimes one at a time, sometimes in small groups and sometimes in entire towns and tells them that He is the Lord, the Savior, and that He's come that they might have life and have it abundantly. And every person who truly encounters Jesus Christ, who really understands who He is, will have their world turned upside down. That's how it is with Jesus Christ. To truly encounter Him is to have one's life completely and forever changed from the inside out. Paul says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away and behold new things have come. Jesus Himself, and some of His last words in the Bible in the book of Revelation says, behold, I am making all things new. He's come to destroy, He says, the works of the devil, and to bring to you and to me the kingdom of God. And that new work which in the book of Acts people says was turning the whole world upside down begins with redemption. Where Jesus Christ brings a new relationship of sinners with their eternal and merciful God and regeneration. A new life for dead souls renewal, new vitality for a tired faith and revival, new joy and strength and power for dying churches. Reformation, a new structure and a new strength for a flagging and a failing faith. A religion that needs to be reformed and finally restoration, the new hope for lost societies. Ultimately all of this will end in resurrection, new bodies for a new world and a new mankind forever in the kingdom of God, the city of God which we know is heaven. All of these things are part of the new things that Jesus Christ brings as the old things pass away. So much so is this truth, my friends, that if someone has an encounter with Jesus Christ and is not fundamentally and eternally changed, then that person has not been born again. They have not become a new creation, it is impossible to have a saving encounter with Jesus Christ and remain the same way you'd always been before. That is impossible because God the Holy Spirit cannot move into a sinful life, a sinful soul and leave things in the status quo. Change must come, the old things must go away and the new things will come. This is what we mean when we talk about conversion, that word means change or transformation. It means that we experience by the Holy Spirit a twofold redemptive work of God repentance and faith. In the book of Acts Paul would call it repentance toward God in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the epistle to the Hebrews that apostle would say it is repentance from dead work and faith toward God repentance, a turning away from the old things and faith, turning and trust to what is new in Jesus Christ, that is what it means to be converted. And if there is no such change, then there is no such conversion and when there is no conversion there has been no repentance and no faith, then there is no new life and no salvation. The new creation has not come and the old dead and damned creature remains. This process of conversion, of changing from a child of darkness to a child of light, takes a whole lifetime. It doesn't happen overnight but it does have a definitive beginning. There is a point in which a person is born again, born from above, born of the Spirit, born anew, born of God. These phrases are used again and again in the Gospel of John and in other places, this thing the theologians call regeneration. And here in our story this morning, John chapter 3, the first 21 verse of Jesus has an encounter with a man who is a theologian, he's a clergyman, he's a churchman. And he tells this man, truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, unless a man is born of the water in the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. There's an urgency here. There's an imperative here, this is not an option. This is essential, you must be born again. What Jesus Christ is doing and what John the Apostle is showing is he's extrapolating out in more detail, a statement that he made over in chapter 1, if you look over in chapter 1 at verses 12 and 13, John said this, he said, but all who did receive him, that is Christ. Everyone who received Christ, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. They were born of God, which means they were born from above, born of the Holy Spirit, born anew, born again. They had a regenerating work of God done in their life and they became a new creation as the old things began to pass away, the things of Christ, the new things began to come into their life. That is what will happen to every single person in these five chapters who has an encounter with Jesus Christ, every one of them will be confronted with something new, some marvelous, life transforming, life changing work that Jesus Christ wants to do in their life. It's different for all these different people, but it all converges into the same stream of regenerating grace. Some will welcome it, they will say, you're right Jesus, I need this new work that you bring, I need this kingdom of God, that all of your signs and wonders are pointing to others will struggle with it, some of them for a long time for years until they yield to this new work of the spirit. Some will reject it, they won't want anything to do with it, they don't want to be a new creation in Christ. These people will arrange on a continuum of John the Baptist disciples like Peter and Andrew and James and John and Philip and Nathaniel to people who are nominal in their faith. We talked about last Sunday, chapter two, they love the works that Jesus Christ is doing and they believe that he's a wonder worker, but he's not entrusting himself to them because they believe in name only, they do not repent and they do not put their trust solely in Jesus Christ. He'll talk to an ignorant churchman today, a guy named Nicodemus, a rabbi, and next to a woman who's the opposite end of the spiritual and social scale, a Samaritan immoral woman he meets at well, then he'll talk to the whole town of Cicare and then to a nobleman who probably is a Gentile working for King Herod. And finally to a lame man who has for 38 years waited for a miracle to come and heal him at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. All these people is vast and different as they are, all have one thing in common, they need Jesus Christ to do something new in their life and Jesus Christ offers that to them. He offers each one the opportunity to become a new creation in him. You notice that our story this morning begins with a little word now. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. That little word now, John uses again and again to connect these stories in a chain of redemptive narratives. Look in chapter 2, verse 23, now, when he was in Jerusalem at the feast of Passover, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. Chapter 3, verse 1, now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, look in chapter 4. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, he left Judea and departed for Galilee and had to pass through Samaria. Chapter 5, verse 2, now, there was in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool, an Aramaic called Bethesda, which had five roof colonnades in these lay a multitude of envelopes. All of these people are now connected to what Jesus Christ is doing in the world. And that little word that begins chapter 3, verse 1, now, connects the story of Nicodemus to what immediately preceded. Look up to two or three verses right in front of that, verses 23, 24 and 25, now, when he was in Jerusalem at the feast of Passover, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man and now. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus who was one of these people described in verses 23, 24 and 25, one of these people who were impressed with the signs of Jesus Christ, fascinated Christ, troubled by what he was saying. Curious about what he was doing in the world, this Nicodemus, like all the others, needed a new work from God. And so he came, not knowing really what he was looking for, but he was doing what they would all be encouraged to do in these five chapters to come and see for themselves what Jesus Christ could offer them. Jesus Christ will tell Nicodemus probably the three most important things that people need to know in order to be saved and go to heaven when they die. That's why John chapter 3 is probably because of verse 16 and this story, the most widely read and perhaps the most important chapter in all of the Bible. Because Jesus will tell this rabbi three things. He will tell him that he needs to understand the reality of the new birth. He needs to understand what regeneration is. Secondly, he needs to know and understand the nature of saving faith, what it is to believe in Christ to be saved. And thirdly, what the problem in the root of the human heart is that keeps him from faith in Jesus Christ. Regeneration, saving faith and the darkness in the human soul, those are the three things. The three redemptive realities that Jesus Christ will tell Nicodemus and you and I hear this morning. The reality of regeneration, verse 1. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a rooter of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Jesus introduces Nicodemus to the theological concept of the new birth, of regeneration, something that theologians define this way. Regeneration is that work of God in which the principle of new life is implanted in a man and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy. It is a work of God's grace in which God implants in the human soul, the principle of new life, life from above, life in God, life in the spirit, born again life, so that the governing disposition of our nature is changed away from sin and oriented in a God-word direction towards holiness. It is that first step in a person becoming a new creation so that the old passes away and the new comes. Our great creeds and confessions and catechisms all speak of this. It is this work of God's spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery and lightening our minds and the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, God persuades and is able us to embrace Jesus Christ as He has freely offered to us in the gospel. It is the beginning work of redemption. God, the Holy Spirit, must bring to your soul into mind to every human soul this principle of the life of Christ and implant it in the soul so that the soul begins to come alive and begins to experience to have an encounter with Jesus Christ that over time completely transforms it. Nicodemus didn't come asking for this or maybe he had. Maybe somewhere in a previous message he'd heard Jesus Christ talk about a new birth, a new life, being born from above. We don't know, there's a gap between verse 2 and verse 3 where Nicodemus comes and says, you must be from God because of all these signs and wonders you're doing and the next thing Jesus is saying is you must be born again. I doubt that Jesus was that blunt and that incoherent. What John is doing is he's summarizing a long encounter perhaps that took hours down to the very heart of the matter. Nicodemus more than likely came to Jesus Christ and said, what is this kingdom of God you're talking about because you talk about that all the time. And how does one enter the kingdom of God? And what's all this talk about becoming a new creation and where does Israel fit into this and what about the law of Moses and finally they get to the point where they're arguing in Jesus Christ says Nicodemus truly I have to tell you this. Less of persons born again they'll never see the kingdom of God unless they're born of a water in the spirit they'll never enter the kingdom of God. They'll not be surprised. Don't let it trouble you that I say you must be born again. This Nicodemus was a rabbi just like Jesus was. In fact, John tells us he was a member of these governing body of the rulers of the Jews to call the Sanhedron. He was a conservative Pharisee who believed the Bible and unlike many of the priests and the Sadducees on that governing body of the Sanhedron he believed in the coming Messiah a person who would be the Messiah who would cause people to be saved from their sins and be delivered from destruction and wrath. But that's all I knew. And he didn't understand that just believing what the Bible said about Moses's law and the rituals in the temple and what they foreshadowed was not enough that there needed to be some inner transformation done in the soul that caused a person to become a new creation. Now Jesus understood that's what he needed. We'll find in all these stories that Jesus looks way beyond much more deep into the soul than the person's felt needs and their questions and their quandaries. He looks right down and knows what they need. He knows this man. This God-fearing sincere rabbi needs to be regenerated. Truly, truly I say to you unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He says, Nicodemus, you must believe that I have come from God because you see the things that I'm doing. But you need to understand that I've come from God not just to impress you with my signs and wonders, but to make you a new creature. To reach into the inner resources of your soul where only that finger of God can do and go and turn something that causes you to be born again. Nicodemus says, this makes no sense to me. I'm an old man. Can I get back in my mother's womb and be born again? There's some sarcasm there. There's some ridicule. This is the defense of soul speaking to Jesus almost in a derisive manner. Oh yeah, so I'm going to crawl back in the womb and be born a second time. Now stupid is that. Jesus said, stupid or not. I tell you this, unless you're born of the water, unless your mother's water breaks and you're born naturally into this world and then born of the spirit. Born again a second time, you will not go to heaven when you die. You should know these things. You should know that that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You should know that God is spirit and to live with God something must happen to your spirit to make you a new creation. Now let's not be too hard on Nicodemus. What Nicodemus is trying to grasp is the most difficult truth of the gospel that we must be born again. He has to believe that there's something fundamentally wrong with his human nature that causes him to need Christ to make you a new. And I say that there's not a person in this room when they first heard this understood it or liked it or agreed with it. Why? Paul says the natural man cannot accept the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him and he is not able to understand it because they are spiritually discerned. Nicodemus is a natural man since he hasn't received yet the gift of the Holy Spirit. He's not a spiritual man. So when Jesus talks of the things of the flesh, Nicodemus understands that about being born of a mother through her womb. But when he talks about the things of the spirit, Nicodemus is the theologian of law. This pastor who has a doctorate in the Old Testament draws a blank just like you and I did. I can remember the first time I went to a Protestant first Sunday. I went to a Protestant church. It's 27 years old. This preacher got up named Jimmy Latimer and talked about being born again. I heard Billy Graham say that a hundred times on television and it meant nothing to me. It was frustrating to me that all these people around me were saying they had been born again at I, a good law abiding Roman Catholic who studied to be a priest almost a rabbi himself was not born again. And it absolutely ticked me off these proud self-righteous evangelicals who said that they were absolutely sure they were going to heaven and I was not. Those were not pleasant days for me or the people who sat around me in church because I was looking at these things as a natural man. Nicodemus says, how can these things be? Jesus says to him, down in verse 9 and 10, are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things. Now he should have because these things were in the Old Testament. Listen to what Ezekiel said. I will sprinkle clean water on you and shall cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all of your idols I will cleanse you. Now listen, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put in you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. There's the promise of regeneration. I will put my spirit in you and take that cold stone heart and make it a heart of flesh. He had read the story of the valley of dry bones. He had heard the spirit come and take these dead bones and make them alive. He had read that story probably taught it a thousand times as a rabbi. He had read Jeremiah and the new covenant that God's spirit would enter into us and write the law on our hearts so that no longer would be said, let's go find out about the Lord because we all know him individually, intimately, one at a time because of the spirit inside of us. He heard those things and yet because he was a natural man, he did not understand these things. He should have understood about the gift of the spirit, about regenerating grace, about being dead and sinned and alive to God but so it is with people in America who sit in church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday who hear gospel presentation after gospel presentation. They probably have been taught John 316 a million times and you know what, they still sleep because they're bored with what the preacher says. They still think it's irrelevant and they look at this old rabbi and say what is he talking about because they're natural men who can't understand the things of the spirit until they've been given a gift called saving faith. That's what unlocks this mystery and enables it to become something other than a vague concept and become a saving mercy. The necessity and the nature of saving faith, that's the second thing that Jesus tells Nicodemus beginning in verse 9. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly I say to you, we speak of that which we know and bear witness to what we have seen but you do not receive our testimony. I have told you earthly things and you do not believe. How can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven the son of man. And his Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave us only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. Nicodemus has faith. He's one of these people back at the end of chapter 23 who has faith in Jesus Christ because he sees Christ miracles and knows he's from God but he doesn't have saving faith. He's not trusting in Christ in a way that he can see Jesus for who he really is. And so Jesus says Nicodemus, are you a teacher of the law and you don't understand numbers chapter 21? Turn there folks, numbers chapter 21. While you turn them I'm going to stop and pray for whatever happening in the balcony father. There's something amiss in the balcony. He looks like someone is ill, someone is sick, there's been an injury. We commend that person to your grace and pray that you give the doctors and the usher's wisdom to help that person and we pray for you to reach down in a magnificent way and deliver from danger and death and from sickness and distress and cause this person to rest in Christ physically and spiritually we ask this for their sake as we pray in Jesus name amen. Thank you for praying with me. There in numbers chapter 21 Jesus Christ tells Nicodemus he reminds him because he says just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness. So shall the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Now look at the story in numbers chapter 21 beginning in verse 4. From out horde they set out by the way to the red sea to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient on the way and the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food in water and we loath this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that the people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses that we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people and the Lord said to Moses make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole and if a serpent bit anyone he would look on the bronze servant and live. Now here's what Jesus is telling us. There was a time when people were angry with God and they rebelled against God and they grumbled against God and God sent venomous serpents in the wilderness to bite them and it was a fiery painful death. And the people realized they were wrong. They went the most and said we have sinned against God. Do something to save us. They repented. We have sinned. And Moses said God what should we do when God said make an image of one of these serpents of bronze and put it on a pole and put it in the center of the camp and lift it up so that when someone is bitten by one of these serpents if they look at that bronze servant and believe the promise that I will spare them. Then they will live. Those who looked at the serpent lived those who didn't died. Jesus said that's what I am. I am the one lifted up. I said later on in this gospel and chapter out if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself and save them. He who knew no sin has become sin on our behalf. Jesus became like the serpent, the devil himself full of sin and punished for our behalf. Lift it up on the cross. If we look at him in repentance and faith, we will live. If we refuse to trust in Christ, if we're not looking to him for life, we will die in our sins. He says, Nicodemus, you should have known in all of the typology, all of the symbolism, the Old Testament, how that all pointed to the Messiah, you should have seen that the serpent lifted up is the son of man, the Messiah on the cross. And as people look to the serpent and were saved, so they'd look to Jesus Christ and they are saved. This is the nature of saving faith, not believing things about Jesus Christ, not being impressed with all that Jesus could do with His signs and wonders. It is looking on Jesus Christ and saying, Oh Christ, unless you save me, I will die from the fiery, stinging bites of my own sins. That is what saving faith is, to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, for 16. For God so loved the world, that He gave us only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, that's coming later on at the end of history. But rather, that the world might be saved through Him, for Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust in order that He might bring us to God. Having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive again, but born again in the spirit as He raised Himself from the dead. This is the gospel truth. And this is what we need to believe. This is the nature of saving faith. We receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation as He's offered us to the gospel. You say, well, pastoral, why isn't that easy for us? Why couldn't Nicodemus grab this? Why don't we fight against this thing? You know, when I came to church this morning, I said, Jane, she said, what are you preaching on this morning? I said, I'm preaching the most important message I'll preach this year. How to be saved? And I said, Jane, there will be some major distraction. And there it is. We prayed for that woman, God will answer. What I'm about to tell you is the most important thing you and your children need to hear in all of your life. Why being born again sounds so strange to you, and why faith in Jesus Christ alone doesn't seem to be enough? Because I'm not talking to neutral people here. Your souls are not blank sheets of paper. There is a force inside of you that is a great power, boring against me even as I speak. It's called darkness. And that is the third thing that Jesus tells Nicodemus. He tells him about the necessity of being born again and the nature of saving faith. Now he tells us the root problem in every single person in this room, including the preacher, microst, there is a power within us that wars against this gospel light. John simply calls it, as Jesus does, the darkness. Look in verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment that light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because there works for evil. For everyone who does evil or wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, less his work should be exposed but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that he may be clearly saying that his works have been carried out in God. John returns to one of his major themes in the gospel light versus darkness. Look at chapter 1 again beginning in verse 4, in him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overpowered it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to the bear witness about the light that all might believe through him he was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. Jesus Christ is the light. I am the light of the world he'll say in a couple chapters. Whoever believes in me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. Here we see these two forces at war in the human soul. The light of Jesus Christ telling us we must be born again calling us to repentance and faith in him and the darkness that says that's ridiculous. That is embarrassing. That is not true. Only a child would believe that. It couldn't be that simple. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm basically as same as in fact I'm better than most people. I live by the 10 commandments. I keep the golden rule and I'm a nice person. That's a soul muttering to itself in the darkness. My friends you are not a nice person. Ask the people who live with you in your house and you don't keep the 10 commandments. You're like me. You break every one of them multiple times a day. And the old and golden rule you live by is people ought to do for me what I want done before I do something bad to them. You're full of darkness. In fact the Bible says you're depraved. There's death in you. There has to be some magnificent work of light. This invasion of Jesus Christ into your soul to make you a new creature so that you can begin to respond to the light and live in the light and come to the light and be saved. It's a catch 22, isn't it? It really is. Stop looking up there and look at me. It's a catch 22. And the catch is that you must be born again. But you can't do that. Nicodemus had a great question and the answer to Nicodemus questions. No man cannot choose to crawl back in time and be born again. There's nothing you can do to be born again. You have to have saving faith but that's a gift from God. You can't have saving faith as long as you're in the darkness. You can't be alive to God if you spiritually dead. It's like if I laid a cadaver here on the roster and I said all afternoon, hey, come on. Come on, wake up and believe. You'd say, Pastor, have you lost your mind? He can't respond. He's dead. And that is the dilemma. And that is what Jesus Christ is telling us that we can only respond in faith if Jesus Christ chooses to give us new life. So the question is, how do I get this new life? How do I know that I have been born again? How do I know if I'm saved? Believe it or not, Jesus tells us. He tells us back in verses 5, 6, 7 and 8. He uses our physical life as a picture of our spiritual life. He said, you know, you can understand things of the natural fleshly world. So let's take that and use it as a picture of the spiritual truth. Look in verse 5, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes. And you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. Because so it is with everyone who was born of the spirit. If I have told you, verse 12, earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Here's what Jesus Christ is saying, how many of you remember the day of your birth? You were there and you were an active participant, ask your mother. How many of you remember the day of your birth? Raise your hand. Well, I guess you weren't born, were you? If you don't remember it or better yet, let me ask you this, this is a more fair question. How many of you know the moment that you got life? Well, you wouldn't remember that either. That was between your mom and your dad and even they didn't know. So when that sperm penetrated that little zygote, whatever it was, and it became a living being, you see you were alive for nine months before you drew your first breath. You were alive for nine months in the warmth and darkness of a womb before you were pushed out ever so rudely and coldly into the light of life. You were alive for nine months before a doctor struck you. You came in the world and he struck you. That's why we're all afraid of doctors. The first encounter was welcome to the world. But in those nine months, guess what happened? You grew. Doctors tell us that in the womb, we suck our thumb, we hear sounds, we respond to pain, we move around, we smile, we sleep, we have all sorts of anxieties and yet we don't know it, do we? God is doing something marvelous, causing us to come alive because a seed penetrates an egg. Life begins and then we're born out into the world and we take our first breath and it's not for years, years until we ask mommy, tell me about the day I was born. Jesus says that's how it is in the spirit. The seed, the sperm, it's called in Greek, the seed of God's word penetrates the soul and you don't even know what's happening but things begin to happen. You begin to grow. All of a sudden the things you were not interested in in the Bible become an objective curiosity for you. You want to know these spiritual things. You argue with God. You get angry with things that once you thought were just not worth your time a day. You have questions. So you go to church and you go to the Bible and you talk with your friends about these spiritual things because you are alive and you are beginning to grow and finally you come to the moment where you are shoved out into the world through the first breath you take as a live being repentance and faith. You inhale Christ and you exhale your sin. You are converted. You are now a new creature in Christ and you begin to grow spiritually like a child begins to grow as an infant into an adolescent into an adult takes the whole life to become a mature Christ like person. But the process has begun and you did nothing. God did it all. Just like your mother and father gave you life brought you into the world, nurtured and suckled and cared for you before you even knew you had a mom and dad. They were there giving you life. And so was God the father and his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Now if you're struggling with these things, if what I'm saying upset you, that's a good sign because I just took a pin and I stuck you in the cadaver reacted. And there's life. You argue with these things because you're beginning to think in spiritual paradigms. You have fears that maybe you're not converted. That's a good sign. You are alive. You've been born again. That doesn't mean you're a Christian yet. You haven't been converted until you repent of your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ but at least you're alive. You're interacting with me, but if you're saying how much longer pastor, it's 1159 and you can't possibly close this in 60 seconds. If this is boring to you, if you are not interested at all, in fact, if you say this is the most stupid thing this old rabbi's ever said, then I have some bad news for you. You're dead in your sins. And for some reason, the Holy Spirit has not caused you to be born again yet to come alive and begin to interact with the light of God's word. You're still in darkness, but here's the good news for you even. It only takes one seed to penetrate the soul. One text, one sermon, one time in God's word, where the living and abiding gospel causes the dead soul to come alive and perhaps that day is today. And that seed is this text that God so loved you, that he gave to you as only begotten son, that if you will believe in him, you will not perish. You will be born again. You will become a new creature in Christ and you will have eternal life with God. How do you know if you're born again? You repent of your sins and you put your faith in Jesus Christ. God then gives you the ceiling of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit bears witness with your Spirit that you are a child of God. And even though you don't remember the moment you came alive or perhaps even the moment that you repented and believed, you know that you're breathing in Christ and exhaling sin, a life of repentance and faith is yours and you know the only way that could happen is that God has done it in you and for you. So like Nicodemus, who later would profess his faith in Christ and stand with the disciples at the hour of Christ's death, this man had been born again even though we didn't know was happening even in the text. And you perhaps you have been born again today. Maybe you're ready today to repent of your sins and to put your faith in Jesus Christ and to become a Christian. If not, God isn't working you. It's no accident that you came here this morning to hear this message. God is after you and he'll pursue you until he finds you. And what God does in giving new birth always issues ultimately in new life. So my suggestion to you is what I would have told Nicodemus that night, what Jesus says to him, why don't you stop arguing and simply repent and believe. Christ has been lifted up from the earth. Look upon Christ and be saved. For if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that he has been raised from the dead, you will be saved. For with a mouth, a man confesses resulting in righteousness and with the heart he believes that results in salvation and everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall not be disappointed. Whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. Father, it's just that simple for us that we don't really need to understand in detail when and how and why you're causing us to be born again. We just need to take the first breath of life when we are slapped by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, breathing in Jesus Christ in faith, trusting in Him alone in exhaling in repentance, a life of Christless darkness and sin. I do pray that there would not be one person leave here this morning who has not been born again. I pray that the seed of your word would penetrate and impregnate every soul with divine life so that this work of becoming a new creation would begin in earnest. I pray for those who are at that point where they are ready to repent of sins and to confess Christ would do so even now and that you would give them the gift of the Holy Spirit who would bear witness with their spirit that indeed they have been born again. They are children of God and they are saved now and forever. That all rests upon this divine person of Christ, his finished work and your great promise that you so love the world that you gave your only son, Jesus Christ, not to condemn us but to save us and that everyone who believes in Christ and trust in Him alone for salvation will have eternal life. They will be born again, they will be converted, they will be saved, they will become new creations and someday they will be with Christ and they will be just like Him when this life-changing work is complete. Help us to begin that life today. We ask for our sake and in Jesus' name, amen.